Herschel
by Nothing Really Specific
Summary: No one knows who he is, where he came from, or why. No one trusts or believes him. No one even knows his real name. No one has even heard his voice. He just goes by Herschel...and he's going to save us.
1. Prologue

**HERSCHEL**

**_Prologue: Descend Onto the Earth_**

There are many ways in which humanity has described hell. The Bible tells of it as a place of torment, misery, fear, and pain. John Milton diverts and calls it a place of a doomed soul who is often misunderstood. Dante's visions recall a sadistic torture that never ceases. Some people however, describe hell as war. A war in which the soul kills the flesh and Truth prevails, or the flesh kills the soul and Deception prevails. Either way, whichever the victor, Truth or Deception, we humans shall die, and death, like life, is painful. It is the act of taking away our only securities and replacing them with fulfillment of our worth. We find it difficult to let go. We find it easy to latch onto the things that we see, the things that we feel, the things that we love. It's perfectly natural for us to do this. It's why we exist, to see, to feel, and to love everything and everyone. That is humanity's purpose. However, when our time comes to meet the Light and enter into Darkness, we have difficulties. We become feral, violent, mutated. Something that, in some circles, needs to be eradicated to keep the sane from losing hope. Government leaders, try as they might, instill in their speeches not a hint of perseverance, but an acceptance of an end. An end that draws nearer with each passing day and each rising moon. An end that Herschel understood and, if one were honest, saved us from.

Herschel fell from the sky.

Like Little Boy dropping onto Hiroshima, he descended upon the earth hell bent on destroying the surface, the populace, and the fear. The damned crazy fear that Megaton was consistently overshadowed by.

Lucas Simms partook in what he assumed to be beer at Moriarty's. At the moment, Gob was cleaning glasses with a questionable rag as Colin hit and cursed the radio.

"Damn thing won't work!" Colin shouted as if he were drunk, which in truth, he was.

"Take it easy," Lucas replied with a slight laugh, "I'll get someone over here tomorrow to fix it."

"Oh sure," Colin said with a smirk, "just like you said you would get someone over to handle with Cornwell's bloody Church of Atom shit. You know," he said, entering the room from the back and walking over to the counter as if he owned the place, which in truth, he did. "I think you're a load of crap. You incompetent, lousy, no good son of a lawyer!"

Lucas smiled and nodded. "Dad was always the legal type." Simms pulled twenty caps and placed them on the counter. He turned towards Gob with slight disgust as every resident usually does before standing up and walking out the door.

"Hey!" Colin shouted, "I'm not done with you yet!"

"You are now." Lucas said, laughing as he exited the bar and walked towards his house.

A drunken man wearing a dark green jacket and a wife beater finally answered to sleep and Nova, who was bored out of her mind, walked into a back room and began to read _A Room with a View_ for the eighty-seventh time.

Simms thought nothing of the sky. As he walked past the Children of Atom, Lucas simply heard the tapping of a tin wall up against a makeshift gutter all because a rat decided it the best breeding ground. A small toy windmill fluttered like bird wings. A radio played a crooning Johnny Mathis who was pleading for his love to return to his arms as a lonely woman with Parkinson's disease, who was listening to the song, had a black coffee as she sat down to close her eyes and dream of her husband, who ascended into heaven in a matter of circumstantial convenience.

Lucas fumbled with his keys as the sky broke into a brilliant spectacle of meteors and starlight. The luminance caused Simms to turn and quickly behold an explosion that ripped the ground apart in a furious thunder. Bits of dirt took to the air. A screech of metal followed.

A pause.

Approaching footsteps.

A knocking, rapping, at the chamber door.

The sheriff slowly reached for his Type 93 Chinese assault rifle that was safely resting on his back as he made his way for the gate to the city.

"Hello?" Lucas said, "Who's there?"

A knocking, rapping, at the chamber door. An adjustment of a setting of some sort.

Lucas grabbed the door handle and applied very little pressure against the door. He did not open it. Instead, Lucas stopped as soon as he heard someone rushing behind him. Jericho, who awoke from the crash, came up behind him carrying a lever-action rifle called Lincoln's repeater in hand. When he was sure he was covered, Simms nodded once and slowly opened the door. A force, greater than that of Lucas' grip, overpowered Lucas' control of the door and opened it violently.

Standing at five foot eleven was a man wearing a brown trench coat, black shirt, brown pants with black belt, and black military combat boots- on his body. As far as the face was concerned, there was nothing but a gas mask.

A soulless, colorless, gas mask.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note #1:<strong>

This is my first Fallout series story. Any suggestions to help make this better will be great appreciated and considered.

Hope you enjoy this prologue, and look forward to more.


	2. Chapter I: The Man from New Chicago

**_Chapter I: The Man from New Chicago_**

The man in the gas mask exhaled. His breath was slow as if he were breathing through an inhaler. The eyes, shielded by dirt, grime, fingerprints, and other stains, examined Lucas Simms and Jericho like a tourist does at a museum. Saying nothing and looking down at the ground, the man took a step, but quickly looked back at the two gun wielding citizens as if to signal if this move was acceptable.

"Who are you?" Lucas Simms asked.

The man reached for his left pocket, which caused Lucas and Jericho to jump into defense. Much like a dog does when first meeting a stranger, the two compatriots were not too fond of sudden hostile movement. The man halted his hand and backed up a step or two.

Jericho examined his boots, noticing fresh mud, even though there was not a recent rain. The former Raider and concurrent drunk, suspicious gun for hire, sneered and turned towards Lucas.

"What you do think Simms?"

"Honestly," Lucas said, "I'm skeptical."

The man resumed his path for his pocket and pulled out a business card. Engraved lettering adorned the horizontal width, the letters were evenly spaced apart and the appropriate height was there. It was a professional faded image of corporate America that still, for some reason, managed to exist:

HERSCHEL

_-Adler School of Professional Psychology-_

17 N Dearborn St

New Chicago, IL

"New Chicago, huh?" Lucas said.

The man, Herschel, nodded and placed his business card back in his pocket.

"Adler School of Professional Psychologist, you some kind of shrink?" Jericho asked.

Herschel said nothing. He simply breathed a bit of air, which caused another asthmatic type of exhale to come out of his gas mask.

Overhead, a group of clouds formed into a single mass of dark sadistic tyranny. Thunder rolled across the fields and into the hearts of the Wanderers and Raiders who, for all intents and purposes, were exposed to the element of Fear. Fear of Thunder, the voice of God, proclaiming that Lightning be a way for people to see in the dark and through it, people will perhaps understand that Fear, like most things, is a myth. Myths and Fear can be controlled with the facing of them and the understanding that you are not alone. As the world slowly began this realization, rain slowly poured down onto the earth like a grieving widow does her husband.

Raindrops pinged against tin roofs and the miniature windmills. Beads of water slowly ran down Herschel's gas mask. The rules of gravity and friction still apply- that's honestly probably the only two things that have always existed. Gravity and friction.

"You don't talk much do you, son?" Lucas asked something confused as to why Herschel hadn't spoken yet. He was too busy looking for any signs of weapons.

"Do you have weapons on you, boy?" The sheriff asked.

Herschel nodded slowly as if to say that he did, but did not want to reveal any of them.

"Empty out your pockets." Jericho said as he poked the barrel of his rifle towards Herschel, pretending as if that could ever provoke or do anything to cause one to move quickly.

Herschel slowly pulled back his trench coat to reveal two Smith and Wesson .32s secured in their hostlers. He reached into his coat inner right pocket with his left hand and pulled out a hand grenade. Herschel cradled it a moment, enjoying the cold steel mesh against his fingertips in a beautiful unity that spelled death with a delay of approximately ten seconds. The most evil way to meet the end. A raindrop tinged the grenade's surface and ran down the curve to lightly kiss the side of his thumb. Herschel handed the grenade to Jericho and after this, removed the magazines from his pistols and handed them to Lucas.

"Finished?" Lucas asked.

Herschel nodded slowly but stood silent aw before. Lucas responded with a nod of his own and turned back around towards his town.

"Come on then," Lucas said as he walked in a little bit, "there's a vacant house just above The Brass Lantern, a local restaurant, you can sleep there for the night and we'll talk about specifics tomorrow." He turned back towards Herschel who still stood in the gateway.

"Come on!" Lucas said, a bit louder. "You don't want feral ghouls coming after you do you?"

Herschel walked down the slight incline into town with Jericho slowly following behind with the barrel of his rifle locked on Herschel's back. The lonely woman with the coffee had finally gone to sleep as the rain picked up. Henry James and Helen Forrest serenaded each other about the familiar songs they knew when love was pure and nothing could possible compare to the feeling of it.

Lucas Simms passed The Brass Lantern and noticed that the exterior light flickered while a moth periodically beat its wings against it and was almost in unison with the rain which pelted the tin roof. Turning towards the ramp, Lucas grabbed the railing and slowly ascended, being mindful of the ricketiness of the place.

"Jericho," Simms said, "be sure to get this fixed please, don't want anyone to kill themselves."

Jericho nodded, "First thing in the morning, sir."

Lucas turned towards the vacant house and heard a pair of voices singing. A female human one, and a male, more artificial one. Wadsworth, the Mister Handy of the house, was serenading himself with Vera Lyn. Lucas knocked on the door and placed the key in the lock.

Wadsworth, who stopped his singing, turned down the music a moment and composed himself as Lucas, Herschel, and Jericho entered.

"Ah," Wadsworth said, "greetings Mister Simms. How are you this fine evening?"

"Fine Wadsworth." Lucas replied. He turned towards Herschel, "This is Herschel, and he'll be staying here for now."

Wadsworth turned towards Herschel and instead of the usual optimism turned towards his new master as if he were the most revolting person in the world. Wadsworth looked towards Simms after a moment of staring and said under his breath, _"You've got to be joking."_

Jericho smiled a bit with a laugh, "No, he's not kidding. You're stuck with him."

The robot floated over to Jericho and sighed, "The thing of it is Mister Jericho, I- I can't take care of him. My circuitry is rusted out. I need to be upgraded or I'm afraid I'm going to be headed for the scrap pile."

"Bullshit Wadsworth," Lucas replied, "just make sure he doesn't do anything dumb. Like get himself killed."

Wadsworth turned back around to Herschel who removed his gas mask and slowly made his way upstairs all while keeping his face towards the wall. Lucas Simms and Jericho exited the house and closed the door.

When the robot was alone, the radio that was on the shelf played Nat King Cole. Wadsworth sighed and made his way to a chair, even though he could not sit in it, he always wanted to do something like that. Herschel moved around in his bed and even though it was not the most comfortable bed in the universe, it was better than the cold ground that he was used to.

"By the way," Wadsworth said, to himself, "my name is Wadsworth, how may I serve you?"

Silence. Well, if you count the rain as silence that is.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note #2:<strong>

These chapters will be short due to the fact that I am attempting to be concise with my thought process.


	3. Chapter II: All This in a Freezer Pt 1

**_Chapter II: All This in a Freezer (Part I)_**

The sun rose at precisely six eighteen. Wadsworth, who never slept a day in his life, knocked on Jericho's door with one of his appendages. Looking around as if it were a crime to be doing what it was he was doing, Wadsworth hummed somewhat innocently to himself as Jericho slowly opened the door.

"You better have a damn good reason for waking up at six-thirty in the morning." Jericho said groggily. His eyes were baggy, as if he hadn't had sleep in three weeks. His faded blue t-shirt had a large coffee stain on it, and his hair was unkempt, but hair tends to be that way when you first get up in the morning.

"Actually, it is roughly six twenty, give or take two or three minutes." Wadsworth replied. "Anyway, it's Mister Herschel, I'm worried about him."

"You're talking as if it's _my_ problem." Jericho said, looking at the robot with disdain, "He's your responsibility."

"I am aware of my responsibilities Mister Jericho, but it appears as though our mutual friend is somewhat delusional."

Jericho rolled his eyes, the kind of eye roll you get when you really don't care about anything but getting back to the previous activity that you were enjoying and still very much care about. In Jericho's case, that previous activity was sleep and he understood by Wadsworth's comment about Herschel being a 'mutual friend' that he wasn't going to get back to that previous activity any time soon.

"Alright," Jericho said, "what specifically are you talking about?"

Wadsworth looked at the ground, trying to find some sort of distraction to keep himself occupied from answering the question that he knew he couldn't necessarily answer.

_What isn't there to talk about?_ The robot thought.

_The man is literally a walking loon. He was up all night tossing and turning, making a ruckus with his mouth, I believe it is called snoring, and when he rose this morning promptly at three a.m., he was trying to communicate a message to the wall. There was no communication device, he was literally talking to the wall. He told me he was practicing for a future conversation but to be honest, I doubt that is the case, for why would you ever have a conversation about a meat market. Literally, Mister Herschel's dialogue syntax consisted of an entire butcher shop. In order: _

_"Ham and salami are sold in bunches, sirloin and turkey are under the hutches. The slabs are kept in the hutches themselves, all this in a freezer, which resides in hell." _

_He then repeated the same riddle or rhyme, I honestly cannot be sure what it was, in German. I know it was German because of well, he told me, but also because of the way he was speaking. It was almost as if he knew the language first before coming to know American English. His eyes, whenever he spoke German, were so passionate and vigorous that I almost thought he was in love with the language. A strange relationship it must be I suppose, to be in love with words and phrases, to make poetry an art and grammar a muse. Then again, it must be beautiful to believe- that a man could love language more than anything. Now that is something to be considered a rarity these days. I'm sorry for my digression. Anyway, Mister Herschel is peculiar, but peculiar in a way that consists also of waking up at three in the morning and-_

The door to the house opened. Turning around, Wadsworth saw Herschel, standing in his clothes and gas mask and looking towards him as if he committed a sin.

The robot reverted to his usual optimism:

"Good morning sir, are you feeling well?"

Herschel slowly moved his left hand up towards the side of his gas mask, more towards his ear, and adjusted a frequency of some sort. He breathed slowly, as if recovering from an asthma attack.

"Are you alright, sir?" Wadsworth said, moving a bit closer.

Herschel nodded as he sulked his way down the ramp, slowly straightening himself out as he inched closer to the bottom. It was almost as if a physical deformity or awkward placement of the spine caused him to natural do this every morning.

The wind blew the bottom of his trench coat, giving just the right impression of a man who had business that needed conducting with a certain individual who had residence in a city he secretly hated.

Mister Burke, whose first name was something horrible, was somewhere in his second REM stage. His dream was Freudian in nature and in truth, would make Freud denounce all of his theories.

Burke's room was nothing spectacular, save for the fusion pulse charge that the man creepily kept underneath his bed sitting securely on a separate pillow. A prostitute who called herself Jean, slept across the room on the floor. Her body was convoluted in a way that spoke of unmentionable deeds of malice. A fly circled around her eyes. A rat, who came in from the night's colder temperatures, slowly cuddled up against Jean's body as if she were a child who loved him.

Hershel knocked on the door once, but unlike before where it was loud and boisterous, this knock was quiet, sinister, and almost had a death knoll sound to it. Upon receiving no answer Herschel knocked again in the same manner, only this time, did so twice. Burke stirred a bit and ruffled his covers desperately trying to hold on to whatever perverted dream he was having. Upon receiving no answer again, Herschel slowly reached his hand for the doorknob and gently turned it. Not surprisingly, the door was locked.

So Herschel waited.

Five minutes….

Ten minutes….

Twenty minutes….

Thirty minutes….

An hour….

At seven-thirty, Burke, as well as the other members of the community, rose from bed. Burke looked over at his nightly visitor and laughed. "You should have pleased me better."

He proceeded to dress himself and when that was done, he reached down below his bed and grabbed the fusion pulse charge. Cradling it like a baby, Mister Burke smiled and gently kissed it. "Oh my little darling, you are going to fulfill your destiny very soon."

Herschel knocked on the door again.

Burke laughed inwardly and thought as he crossed the floor to the door, _"Sooner than you think."_ He placed the fusion pulse charge in a shadow of the wall. He opened the door and gave Herschel a smile, the same type of smile you give when you see an old friend.

"Somehow I knew you'd come to see me."

Herschel said nothing, instead he held out his hand, palm facing the sky, and beckoned Burke to follow him out. Smiling all the way, Burke did so and noticed that Herschel continued the beckoning motion- the four fingers bending towards the individual doing the action- rather slowly. Almost as if Herschel was patiently waiting for whatever it was that he wanted. Burke's smile widened and by the time they reached the atomic bomb in the middle of the square, the businessman was giving the Cheshire Cat a run for his money.

Herschel stopped walking. With the same hand that he was doing the beckoning motion with, he pointed to the ground beside him. Burke took a large step and stood in the assigned position.

"What is this about, David?" Burke asked.

Herschel said nothing. He just stared at Burke disdainfully, as he slowly grabbed Burke's throat, secretly enjoying the feel of the pulse, the rushing of blood to the heart via the jugular vein and the thought process of a crazed psychopathic loon who wanted to see if Oppenheimer's brainchild still worked.

"Oh that's right, I forget, that's not your name anymore, my apologizes." Burke said, hinting at sarcasm. Burke laughed and took a breath before continuing:

"What exactly are you going to do?"

Herschel cocked his head to the side much like a bird would do and laughed as if he were the devil. He squeezed Burke's throat and punched the man in the torso, sending Burke to his knees. Herschel let the man go and walked back towards the ramp. When he reached the top, Wadsworth was back inside the house and Jericho back inside of his. Herschel turned around and saw Burke stand up and look towards him. Herschel flipped him off and after this, entered his house.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note #3: <strong>

This story takes place two weeks before James leaves Vault 101.


End file.
